I write to you to speak,
not sure if out of love,
or to be rejected.

I write with love,
but in a negative way,
leading to disaster.

A disaster that will hurt me,
that will punish me.

Because she didn’t love me,
because she didn’t know how to love me.

I feel alone,
yet I don’t let
anyone stay by my side.

It seems like I hurt myself,
like I’m the first to reject me.

A wound marks me,
from a distant past,
one that time has only confirmed.

I do something foolish,
to mistreat myself,
and guilt places me in your hands.

I do something foolish,
I invalidate myself,
so you might love me.

I do something foolish,
a kind of
self-sabotage.

I do something foolish,
as if handing you the power
to mistreat me.
No response,
no defense,
hoping to wake up.

I sacrifice myself for your validation,
giving my all,
yet never finding you.

Since I don’t see
what I long for,
I give even more.

I repeat the cycle,
so intensely,
affecting your interest,
draining emotions.

Creating dependence
on your love,
as if mine had no worth.

I surely criticize myself,
I surely devalue myself,
I surely expect you to leave,
to release this distress.

I let you dominate me,
I stay silent about what hurts,
so you won’t leave me for another.

Unfair conditions I accept,
prioritizing your desires,
while mine remain unseen,
breeding silent resentment.

I no longer know who I am,
I lost all of me,
I never loved myself,
nor was I truly loved.

I don’t let myself move forward,
I don’t let myself love you,
this fear running through my veins
keeps me from finding you.

I will no longer open my heart to anyone,
I stop searching for you,
I don’t want to be hurt again.

Deep in my heart,
I know this wound
can be healed.

It’s just a small wound,
and I am responsible for it.

My great love, I will find you,
my favorite girl,
when I learn to love myself.

My great love, I will find you,
to play like children,
to have a love that is whole.

डर है,  
हाँ है,  
डर तुझे खोने का,  
तेरा मेरे पास न होने का,  
तेरे लिए होकर भी न होने का,  
या फिर शायद तेरा किसी और का हो जाने का।  

कैसे भूलूं तेरे साथ बिताए हुए सारे पल,  
कैसे संभालूं खुद को जब तू नहीं होगा मेरे पास कल,  
अपना होकर भी अपना नहीं तू,  
बस इसी बात से खफ़ा हूँ।  

इतना भी क्या ज़रूरी है तेरा जाना?  
नहीं हूँ तेरे लायक, चल ये भी माना,  
पर क्या इतना आसान है तेरे लिए मुझे खोना,  
आसान है सब कुछ ख़त्म कर भूल जाना?  

ना जाने कैसा खेल खेल रही है ज़िंदगी,  
हर चीज़ पर रुला रही ये मुझे,  
सब कुछ सही हो जाएगा,  
बस एक बार कह दे,  
कि तू कहीं नहीं जाएगा!

Foundation.

If you've gone through separation, did sleep come easy or not?

Title
Sleepless in Paradise

I once knew Love and stayed briefly within its shadowy keeps

Sated

But now separated
And unmated

I can no longer enter
For I no longer sleep

(C) Copyright John Duffy

"Thou, I can't tell what I need,
Yet in thy heart, it's already known.
I will whisper, I will resist—
Be my sapphire, I, your metal.
Molded to hold, forged to protect,
For one to be yours,
I am black—
Ever beneath you, unseen but near."

I can be anyone you want,  
darling,  

I can shift, I can bend,

I can—  

I can break.

Oh, I can break.  

But right now—

right now—

right now I need to be your lover.  

Not a stranger,

not a shadow,

not a

MAYBE ONE DAY…

I need to be the breath in your lungs,

the static under your skin,

the ache in your bones when you wake up too fast and swear you felt me there.  

I was…

But time is a cruel, slow god  
and patience is a cage with rusted bars
  
and I

I

I

am losing myself inside it.  

I can see it.

I can see

US

Not in fragments, not in fleeting dreams,

not in—
  
SOMEDAY

But in a life with walls and windows and hands that don’t let go.

In a world where waiting is over and we don’t bleed for time anymore.

Where I am yours without a clock between us.  

But not yet…

NOT YET

Not yet, so I stay.
Not yet, so I hold.  
Not yet, so I swallow

the madness and let it simmer in my gut

until it kills me from the inside out.  

I do not know how to be patient when the future already belongs to me.

I do not know how to be sane when you exist in a time I cannot touch.

I do not know how to be whole when half of me is waiting for you.  

My hands shake when I write your name.
  
My thoughts slip like loose threads,
  
unraveling,

twisting,

spelling things backwards—

See?

Se?

Ees?

But they all mean the same thing.  

I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you

and you are not even mine yet.

Yet.  

Yet.  

YET..

I can be anyone you want, darling,  
I can wait, I can hold, I can burn,  
I can wear patience like a noose and call it devotion,

I can

I can

I can

BUT IT HURTS…

God, it hurts.  

But you are worth every second

I kept waiting for someone to say my name
like it mattered —
like it meant something more
than the smoke curling from their mouth
or the pause before their next thought.

I kept practicing how I’d answer,
as if the right inflection
could make me worth remembering.
I kept hanging around
like a seat at a table no one was saving —
elbows off the surface, back straight,
trying not to look desperate —
taking notes in the margins of other people’s lives,
highlighting the parts I thought I belonged to.

I filled my pockets with reasons to stay
and still got left behind.
I burned through summers,
cut my teeth on promises made in passing cars.
I stood on porches barefoot, whispering,
Say it back. Please say it back.
But they never did.

I should’ve known better —
should’ve stopped twisting my ribs into ribbon,
threading my spine through the eye of a needle.
I kept breaking myself down into fractions —
a fifth of my pride, a sixth of my spine —
like if I whittled myself thin enough,
I could slip through your keyhole
and rise up like incense burning in your room.

But you were always somewhere else —
feet planted in some other city,
hands too full to catch what I kept throwing.
I was all green lights and loose laces,
always running to meet you halfway —
never noticing you weren’t moving.

I feasted on Adderall
and kept my phone on loud.
I swallowed nights whole
and called it hunger.
Or else I slept for days —
stumbled downstairs with breath like battery acid,
ate three bowls of raisin bran and no water.
My bones went soft as rotting fruit.
My dreams felt like something I could stream —
pause, rewind, resume —
binge-watching my pleading in real time,
begging the screen to glitch out a better ending.

I chewed the quiet until my teeth ached —
gnawed on the hours like stale bread.
Nights stretched thin,
a damp washcloth wrung out too many times.
I stayed up rewriting the last thing you said,
like if I shifted the punctuation
I could make it kinder.
Turned your ellipses into commas,
your cold period into a question mark.
I swore if I curved the words just right,
they’d fold into something softer —
something I could survive.

I spent that week pulling myself apart —
scrubbing my skin until it blushed raw,
stripping it like wallpaper,
scrapping your name out of my throat
like a fish hook.
I kept your words in a jar under my bed —
tight-lidded and hissing like a hornet’s nest.

I kissed the air where you should’ve been
and tasted copper and sweat.
Pressed my tongue to the place it stung
and thought,
This is what love leaves you with —
a mouth full of blood
and a story no one believes.

I kept the lights low for weeks after.
And one morning, I woke up,
swallowed the silence like a dare.
I cut my name out of the air with my teeth.
I let the hurt stick under my nails —
dark and jagged —
and I kept writing anyway.

I spit the silence out like a pit —
sharp, bitter, black.
It hit the floor and rolled,
and for the first time,
I didn’t follow it.

I let it rot where it landed.
Let the flies have their fill.
Let the maggots move in.
Let the earth swallow it whole.
Let it die twice.
Let the ground forget it ever lived.

I go to bed each night
with your face
for reference
in my frame of mind
to discern musings of how
there is no shared
connection left
between the
dreams I have
of what could have been
over what came to pass

I mull over idealized trust
while settling into a pillow,
only to realize that it was
never anything more
than a beacon of lust

Enough
is enough,
I've had it up to here
with this ******* tragedy,
three years and counting,
filling the hollow spots
with a jagged cup
only to perpetuate
the savagery
of spilling
my own blood

When will ‘enough’
become a segue
to pass through valiantly
into new heights
where credence will
alleviate symptoms
of infinitely reaching for
a reason why I can't find
an alternate reality
outside of seeing your face
when I go to bed
each night

And after all this torture,
I think I might
put others on
a pedestal so high
that enough
could never be enough,
and after drowning in
my violent noise,
it seems that
in your silence
is where I will have to find
self-love

Show business isn't as glorious as you'd think,
There's not much glory that comes form this stage,
Yet us actors trade all the lovely pieces of our life,
For a split second of grace and beauty.

Don't mention the back stage,
No to an actor at least,
I'm afraid nothing good happens there,
At least for us, it's just heartbreak and longing.